


All Apologies

by fluorescentgrey



Series: In the Garden [7]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F, Friendship, Gen, Grunge, Seattle, Wizard Rock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:15:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24531403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluorescentgrey/pseuds/fluorescentgrey
Summary: January 8, 1994. Alex and Graeme attend Nirvana's last show in Seattle.
Series: In the Garden [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/734235
Comments: 6
Kudos: 12





	All Apologies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [owenmeany](https://archiveofourown.org/users/owenmeany/gifts).



After a while, Kyla turned over and got her underwear out from under the bed and set about untwisting the leg holes. “What are you doing tonight,” she said. 

“What is everyone in Seattle doing tonight?” 

“Oh, good. Where are your seats?” 

“Graeme and I got general admission.” 

Kyla made a face. “So did me and Lockett.” 

“Oh, god.” 

“I know. Must they foil us at every turn?” Having figured out her underwear, she started rooting around under Alex’s pillows and the mess of quilts and knit throws in search of her shirt. “Did you get anything out of him?” 

“No, did you?” 

“No,” Kyla groaned, “of course not.” 

To get up out of the bed, even though it was midafternoon, and they hadn’t been sleeping, was a trial the likes of which Alex had never before experienced. Kyla managed it first, but then she couldn't find her pants — they were probably in the living room — so she took a skirt from Alex’s closet. Without even looking in the mirror, she buttoned it in the most flattering possible position on her waist and tied up the long, tattered hem to show off the floral tattoos on her leg. Alex felt like she'd been hit over the head with something. Now it was going to be even harder to get up. “Have you seen my boots,” Kyla said. 

“No.” 

“Do you just not want me to leave or what?” 

“Well, yeah.” 

Eventually Alex managed to get her nightgown on and set about making coffee while Kyla looked for her boots. She didn't find them, but she did find her jeans under the couch. “You should just take the skirt,” Alex told her. “It looks better on you.” 

“What about shoes?” 

Kyla had giant feet, so Alex let her into Wray’s room, which was nominally just the spare room now that Graeme didn’t exactly live there anymore, except that all of Wray’s stuff was in a box in the back of the closet, including some of his extensive collection of loafers and work boots in petite men’s sizes meticulously harvested from Goodwill. This whole thing was new and kind of weird, because they had been friendly acquaintances for a long time before the whole affair had taken a pirouette for the sensual, so Alex steeled herself in the door, wondering what Kyla thought of this, knowing she knew it was fucked up, hanging on to your dead friend’s things for more than three fucking years. The issue was, Alex would have said, if Kyla had asked her, that everybody and their mom in Seattle shopped at the Goodwill on Dearborn, so she couldn’t very well take everything there, lest she start seeing it on everybody and their mom, so she really was going to have to drive it all to Bellingham or something, even Tacoma being too close for comfort, but the only vehicle she had access to was Crucia’s tour van, which was a stick shift, so she couldn’t drive it, so things had kind of languished for a while, just stagnated, just waiting, collecting dust; it wasn’t because she couldn’t bear to get rid of them or anything, or that it felt sort of right to have them around, like a little museum of Wray she could look at if she wanted sometimes… But Kyla just unearthed a pair of beat-to-shit red leather L.L. Bean boat shoes and slipped them on over her chunky wool socks. 

“You look like some kind of… hot dyke deckhand,” Alex said. 

“Is that a come-on?” 

“You know it is,” said Alex, even though Wray had looked like a hot dyke deckhand when he’d worn them too. 

“I remember him wearing these with… god,” Kyla said, as they went back out into the kitchen, “that suit that Graeme wears sometimes.” 

“Oh, the suit. Would you eat some scrambled eggs?” 

Kyla nodded, boosting herself up to sit on the counter by the sink. “You know, it looked better on Wray.” 

“Yeah, it did.” 

“I miss him a lot, being in this house.” 

You’re telling me, Alex thought. That was also why she hadn't moved out. As though, if she left, the missing would go away, and some important part of him, and, as such, of herself, would be left behind. 

It was getting to be a bit of the core of her persona, she thought sometimes while extremely stoned: carrying the burning torch. Making sure nobody forgot what had happened. It was not necessarily grief — not like Graeme’s grief, which was this total ash-strewn blast-radius stratovolcanic Big One wasteland — but rather a kind of unmet yearning for revenge. Like a little burning ember that kept her cold on the warmest nights. She hadn't needed it very much of late, because Kyla was in her bed more often than not. It had been a very odd year and Alex had figured she shouldn’t pass up any nice thing that was on offer. 

“It’s his house,” Alex said, shrugging, the same way she sometimes said, _it’s his band_. 

“It’s _your_ house,” said Kyla. 

They ate scrambled eggs with goat cheese and a fresh scallion plucked from the regrowing bunch propped in a jam jar by the kitchen window and a toasted baguette Alex dug out of the back of the freezer, they drank coffee, listened to Throwing Muses, laughed a little, danced on the dirty floor. Finally they looked at the clock. “Fuck,” Kyla said, “I said I’d meet Lockett at the Anchor ten minutes ago.” 

“You can Apparate to the back alley,” Alex reminded her, having done such a thing many times to get to the storied wizarding fisherman’s bar in South Lake Union. Not really wanting Kyla to leave, though they had spent all day together, and some of the day before, and most of the day before that, and definitely all of the previous Monday. 

“It’s alright,” Kyla said, putting Wray’s boat shoes back on. “I’ll walk. He’s always late.” 

Alex walked her to the door like a gentleman. Outside it was already nearly dark. “See you later,” she said. 

“See you tonight,” said Kyla. 

“I’ll blow you a kiss.” 

Kyla put her mouth against Alex’s lower lip. Not really even so much of a kiss — just a touch. “I’ll blow you _and_ kiss you,” she said. “After. If you’re not busy.” 

“I won’t be.” 

“Okay, good.” 

Then she went gallivanting down the steps and out to the sidewalk, saluting Alex as she closed the gate behind her and turned left to head down the hill through Cal Anderson Park. 

Alex’s entire body felt effervescing. She cleaned up the kitchen and set about straightening her room, but it hadn’t been fifteen minutes before Graeme came in the door. “Ran into Kyla,” he said, hopping on one foot to take his shoes off. 

“Oh, really?” 

“Yeah. She has the same skirt as you!” 

\--

In the winter, here at the edge of the continent, it was full dark around 4pm, so by the time they left around 7, the sky was deep velvet black, the clouds a low, silencing blanket, and there were no stars. Alex and Graeme walked together through the park and met up with a stream of grungily-dressed teens and twenty-somethings pouring down Denny toward the I-5 overpass. Occasionally, waiting at a street corner for the light to change, Alex felt herself being looked at. It happened, sometimes, in particular settings, in particular crowds, because there were portraits of the five of them in the liner notes of the self-titled Crucia LP released in early 1991. They looked different — Alex had changed her hair and gotten new tattoos and stopped wearing all black, and Graeme didn't wear glasses anymore, and now that he had stopped drinking the searching quality about his eyes seemed more shrewd and focused — but they were clearly them. 

“How is it out there,” Alex asked Graeme, trying to pretend it wasn’t happening. 

“Oh, it’s going good. I can play you everything tonight.” 

_Fuck_. Alex had forgotten she’d told Graeme he could stay over. In an apparent effort to “avoid temptation” (drugs, drinking, Lockett Schaff) and “be productive” (write songs, for uncertain reasons, given that Crucia had not practiced in at least eighteen months, and it was unclear, after the events of June 1993, if Saint Rose would ever perform again), he was essentially squatting on his parents’ old property in the woods near Peshastin. It had been sold to some Muggles, but nobody lived there, so Graeme had moved into the A-frame with a sleeping bag and a guitar, and returned to the city biweekly for shows and groceries. “You’ve written some things?” 

“I mean, some riffs, sketches… I’ll show you. You’re the songwriter between us.” 

Alex had about sixty worthwhile song ideas, scattered across a handful of tapes that in turn were scattered across her bedroom, the living room floor, and the practice space; there was probably one under the stove, and at least one behind the bathroom vanity. Some of these predated Wray’s death; some of them even predated the recording of the first Crucia LP. A few were from a relatively productive period between Wray’s death and Graeme’s absconding to London, and they had played them live on tour and they'd been well-received. The more recent ones were her favorite. They sounded like stepping into cold water. The best one was about about Kyla, not that she could ever tell Graeme that. 

The trouble with all these song ideas was that she wasn’t sure what they were for. Did they have a band anymore? They all seemed to be actively avoiding talking about it. 

Outside Seattle Center they waited in line for a few minutes, Alex flashed the tickets, and they went inside, weaving up as close to the front as they could manage. They all knew, from growing up coming to shows here, that the sound was best on the left side of the cavernous room. Kyla certainly knew — she’d grabbed Alex’s shoulder not far from where they were presently standing at a Cranberries show in December, putting in motion said sensual pirouette. 

“If they could play one song,” Graeme asked Alex, “what would you wish it would be.” 

“Aneurysm,” said Alex instantly. “You?” 

“Frances Farmer.” 

Alex had thought since the first time she’d listened to _In Utero_ that _I miss the comfort in being sad_ was a very Graeme sentiment. “Good one,” she said. 

“Aneurysm is a really good pick too.” 

“I always thought we should cover that.” 

Graeme cocked an eyebrow. “I would do it,” he said. 

“Really?” 

“Yeah.” He made the furrowed-brow lip-chewing face he made when the subject of the band was evoked. Alex suspected that maybe he thought it was his fault that they weren't getting back together. “I mean, I think we should.” 

“The only problem is it’s, I mean, maybe less radical praxis for a woman to sing the ‘beat me out of me’ part.” 

“I’ll sing that part,” Graeme told her instantly. 

“Graeme, you hate singing.” 

“I know, I do, but I’ll sing that part.” 

“Okay,” Alex said. 

“Okay?” 

“Okay! Let’s shake on it.” 

And they did. Was it that easy? Were Mercedes and Marsden going to show up out of the woodwork? Alex wouldn’t’ve put such a thing past the general ambient magic diffuse in the Puget Sound air, and indeed a lightning bolt hit her when she looked through the crowd around them, but it was only Kyla, being as she was an entity of extreme radiance. Lockett, like a gentleman, had given her his leather jacket, which no doubt had drawn Graeme's attention. It seemed telling to Alex that, even after everything, whatever _everything_ was, he hadn’t cut off the Crucia back patch. He was standing next to Kyla, laughing at something she had said, loose-limbed, hair neat, looking like somebody’s respectable mountain-biking boyfriend and not a vampire. Right on time, next to her, Alex felt Graeme stiffen, like he’d caught a sudden draft of quite cold wind. 

This whole thing was like a soap opera b-plot that went on for ninety-seven seasons to the heartache of approximately six lonely housewives. Maybe if they weren't two of the most emotionally illiterate human beings on earth, it would have been easier for them and everybody around them. Or, at least, this was what Alex and Kyla spent a fair amount of time talking about. _I miss the comfort in being sad_ , Alex remembered. She caught Kyla’s eye, which brightened with a kind of secret smile. Alex winked. Kyla put her sweet pink tongue against her lower lip and then she mouthed, _fuck me harder._

\--

Nirvana did play “Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle,” toward the end of their set, which would be the last they would play in the city, and indeed the last they would play in the United States, not that any of them could have known this then. Graeme had his eyes closed and the light washed his face, catching the lines and the tired circles. It felt like something big that everybody in that room, everybody in the country, everybody in the world seemed to shout that lyric at the same time: _I miss the comfort in being sad_. That was Kurt’s power. You did not realize that you felt it until he said he also did. 

Alex felt boundless with elastic joy, tethered to the earth only by the certainty that this moment in time would end. When it ended, she would need to keep going, and it was going to be a slog. But somebody was going to have to do it: the road was clear, and people were listening. 

\--

It took them about an hour to get out of the building, and another thirty minutes to find their way to a side street up the hill that wasn’t thronged with other concertgoers, and only then did they start speaking. 

“When are you going to tell me what happened,” Alex said. 

“I thought I did,” said Graeme. “There was the attack in London, and then — ”

“No, I mean with Lockett, dumbass.” 

Graeme cringed a whole body cringe and pretended to melt to the sidewalk. 

“It’s that bad?” 

“Yes!” 

“Graeme, you can tell _me,_ come on.” 

Graeme looked heavenward for strength. “Well, you know,” he said, even though of course Alex didn’t know, “after… everything that happened, we were driving in his car, and I may have… said some things.” 

“What kind of things.” 

Graeme chewed his lower lip. He looked extremely embarrassed. 

“Was it a love confession.” 

“It went probably as bad as any conversation could conceivably go,” Graeme said, not answering the question. 

“I’m sorry.” 

“It’s alright, I mean — ”

“I really am, Graeme, I’m really sorry.” 

He pursed his mouth, watching the sidewalk intently to avoid looking at her. “Yeah,” he said, “Thank you. So am I.” He shrugged. “I bet you can guess what everything I’ve been writing is about.” 

“Have you been writing lyrics?” 

“No, but — it doesn't need to have words to be about — it's the same thing over and over, I’m trying to say… everything I should’ve said then, and everything I wish I could say now…” 

They waited on the corner of Stewart to cross onto the Denny overpass. Standing here, in the needling rain, Graeme beside her, after midnight, waiting alone together in the silence and the cool wind, it could have been 1989, and they could have been coming from a show at the Den, climbing the hill together to go home. 

Alex steeled herself. “I think we need to put it out,” she said. 

“Put what out?” 

The obvious fire, Alex thought. “The songs. You have songs, I have songs.” 

“You think so?” 

“I think we need to say, it’s our band now. He’s with us, he always with us, we’re still us, it’s our band now. _We_ have something to say. We _still_ have something to say. I think that — I don’t want to sit and wait anymore. I don’t know if I can.” 

They paused together on the bridge and watched the scant few cars below on the interstate disappear in and out of the pools of caramelish light in the darkness. 

“I don’t want to either,” Graeme said eventually. “I’ve been thinking that since — I can't just lock myself away like… a deposed king or something.” 

“You really want to do it?” 

“I really don’t know,” he told her. “I don’t know if I want anybody to hear… but it doesn’t matter. I think we have to. We can’t just _not_.” 

“Can you stand it, though. After everything that happened?” 

Graeme shrugged. “Probably not.” He shook his head, smiling a little. “I’ve never really been able to stand it, have I? But here we are anyway. Maybe that’s what makes us good.” 

Alex felt floating again. It would probably feel different in the cold light of day, but, at least for this single precious moment, against all odds, the future was a great lovely void of extreme possibility. She had to stand on her tiptoes to swing an arm around Graeme’s shoulder, and they walked up the hill together like a pair of conspiratorial pirates. All in all is all we are…

\---

\--

-

**Author's Note:**

> incredibly, [an audio recording of this concert exists.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdrfDQI7PuE) [here's the setlist.](https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/nirvana/1994/seattle-center-arena-seattle-wa-53d60379.html) unfortunately for alex they did not play "aneurysm." 
> 
> i am aware that there is a big narrative piece missing between ["when tomorrow hits"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15467430) and this story. i am working on it. hopefully i will be able to share it by the end of 2020. 
> 
> this was written for [owen](https://om-johnirv.tumblr.com/) in exchange for their donations to racial justice organizations on the ground in minneapolis. i'm doing an [ongoing fundraising drive](https://yeats-infection.tumblr.com/post/619864266613407744/yeats-infection-yeats-infection) for organizations on the front line of the racial justice movement right now - if you'd like to take part, and i hope you will, please give and message me with proof (on tumblr or at fgreyfx @ gmail) and i will write you something.


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